


As Mad As All That

by fringeperson



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Gen, do you believe in magic?, nobody is crazy here, their equilibrium might be disturbed but they're not crazy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:28:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27626090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fringeperson/pseuds/fringeperson
Summary: Insanity is the only sane response to an insane situation. Emma is beginning to catch on.~Originally posted in '17
Relationships: Mad Hatter | Jefferson & Emma Swan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

He did own a car. He could even drive it, and very well. He didn't trust the beastly contraption though. Oh, he knew all about them, thanks in part to the false memories of Jeffrey March planted into his head by Regina, and in part to many hours over many years in a town where nothing happened and he had nothing better to do than learn everything, because why not? All of that knowledge, however, did not make him trust them. He trusted his boots and his own two feet. If needed, he'd maybe trust a horse, possibly even a cart or carriage. It depended on who the horse, cart, or carriage had belonged to before he needed to use them.

There were times, however, when a car, or even a cart, would be a very handy thing indeed. Like, for example, when he was hauling concussed women through the woods to his house. Jefferson was a fit man, a very fit man compared to... actually, most of the population of Storybrooke. About the only one who'd been any sort of competition in that area had been the Huntsman, Sheriff Graham Humbert in this world, before Regina had killed him.

Oh yes, he knew. But that was beside the point. The point was that, as fit as he was, it still would have been a handy thing to have a cart for, well, carting around concussed women. He could have gone back to his house to get his car, but who knew if the woman in question wouldn't wake up and run off again while he went to get it? He couldn't carry it around in his pocket though, and he hadn't known he'd want it. This particular woman had lost all her muscle-tone and gone... not fat, no, but certainly a bit more... _plush_ than she'd used to be.

Snow White, Mary Margaret Blanchard as she believed herself to be in this world, could probably have stood to lose a few pounds.

In any event, he had carried her over his shoulder back to his house, tied her up – he was well aware of the goings-on in town, even if he practically never set foot in the place. Sydney Glass, whoever he had been in the old world, was pathetic in every way – but _The Mirror_ had at least always been pretty good at keeping up with current affairs, few as they really were. A person just had to read between the lines a little to find out what was _really_ going on. Especially if it involved Regina, Rumplestiltskin (Mr Gold, which was actually an easier name... he'd have to ask the Imp which he preferred, but later, now was not the time), or the beautiful new Sheriff Swan.

Now as it started to rain, and again on foot because he while he had other means of to-ing or fro-ing, he suspected that the Sheriff would likely be out looking for Snow, and they would likely cross paths as he headed in to Storybrooke proper. Mary Margaret had an appointment in the morning that she simply could not miss, and he had no doubts that Sheriff Swan would not be happy if the other woman was so much as five seconds late.

He was so lost in his thoughts as he walked, he didn't notice the bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle through the rain until it was almost upon him.

He leapt one way, the car swerved the other. He rolled down a bit of a hill, and took a deep breath when he came to a halt. The wet earth was quite a good cushion to fall upon, especially for a man who knew how to fall without injuring himself.

“I'm so sorry! I didn't see you there! Are you alright?” someone asked. A female voice. Not a lot of those were friendly any more. In all honesty, he'd taken that swipe at Snow because he'd thought, for a moment, that she was Regina, come to haunt his property and mock him in his misery.

He'd been properly contrite when he realised his mistake, but she was out cold then. The only thing he could really do for her was get her back to his house, and then get the Sheriff to come retrieve her. Which meant going into Storybrooke to get the Sheriff himself, because, for all the marvellous things in his great big house, he didn't have a phone.

“Sir?” that voice asked, prompted.

Right, he'd nearly been run over, but he and the car had missed each other, barely, and the driver was worried for him.

He looked up to see -

“Alice?” he asked, stunned by the face before him. It felt like he'd been hit in the gut, never mind the near-miss and the tumble. “No, no you can't be Alice. She's dead. I didn't kill her, but it was my fault, and then it was just me and our daughter. I was good. I was taking care of Grace. It was just the two of us, but we managed. Then Regina came and tricked me into doing one last, high-risk job for enough money that I could buy Grace nice things again, but when I did it she separated us, and now -”

“Hey,” the blonde woman who was not Alice interrupted gently, and wrapped warm hands with long, elegant fingers around his shoulders.

He stopped rocking. He hadn't realised he had been rocking.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I... I'm fine. Not hit, not hurt. Um... Sorry. You're the Sheriff, aren't you?”

The beautiful blonde woman nodded gently. How could just bobbing a head up and down be gentle? But it was. It was like she was apologising for not being who he wanted her to be, even as she confirmed that she was who she was. And who she was, was not Alice.

“Emma Swan,” she introduced herself.

“Jefferson,” he answered, still a little numb. “I think I may be in shock,” he added.

“Yeah, I think you might be too,” Emma agreed. “Let me give you a lift, either back to your place or to the hospi-”

“Not the hospital,” Jefferson cut off. “Her majesty has too many spies there. Besides, I found something I think is yours. It's why I was even out at this time of night. Headed for the station to ask you to come and get it.”

“You could have called,” Emma suggested weakly as she reached out a hand to help him up.

“My telecommunications connection goes out if a bird sits on the wire. It's fritzy at best in this weather,” he replied, and clasped his hand around hers. “It's the big house about a mile down the road,” he directed, and let himself be assisted into the wicked contraption that had just made an attempt on his life. He knew not to trust cars.

On the other hand, he wasn't going to be able to walk himself home in his current, shocky state, so riding in a car it would have to be.

~oOo~

“Wow,” Emma exclaimed as she pulled up outside of the building. “That's your house? You weren't kidding when you said it was big. It looks more like a hotel! A really, really nice hotel.”

“It's a lot of empty rooms,” Jefferson countered. He knew she was unlikely to comment on the size of the family that filled it, not after his little slip on the roadside, but he'd still rather avoid the chance of comment being made. At least, by anybody other than himself. He knew how to dance around the subject without setting himself off too much.

“Full of riches, and trinkets, and the resounding echoes of loneliness. No loved ones to share with, not even any visitors unless Regina decides to lurk about in that intimidating way of hers,” he said, his dislike for Regina clear in his tone. “I have rooms dedicated to each hobby I picked up to fill the empty hours, and rooms decorated for a wife who is gone and a child I'm not allowed near. I started talking to myself just to break the silence, but I'm maybe not the best conversation partner I could have.”

“That's... that first bit was kinda poetic, and the rest of it was really sad,” Emma offered. “I'm sorry.”

She seemed to be saying that a lot to him. Did he really inspire so much sympathy? Well, he was a broken man. He supposed it was justified.

“I apologise,” he said. The words spilling out. He needed to explain his little break-down a bit more than just shock from almost being run down. “I... you don't... Alice had the same hair,” he said with a self-depreciating scoff. “I'd thought it was impossible for anybody to have the same gorgeous mess of golden curls that Alice had. You actually don't look anything like her, apart from the hair.”

“It's alright,” she said. “Or, at least, I don't mind. It probably isn't alright from your perspective, but I'm not going to hold it against you,” she assured him gently, and reached a hand out to wrap comfortingly around one of his own where it sat, curled up in his lap.

“Thank you. Now, we'd better get inside before she wakes up and panics,” he suggested.

“What?” Emma yelped.

“I did say I found something I think is yours,” Jefferson reminded her. “In the dark, I uh, I mistook her for Regina. Technically, she was trespassing on private property, and who knows what business she'd have lurking about my house in the dark, so I felt a concussion would be totally justified. I uh, well.”

“You have Mary Margaret in your house?” Emma asked.

Jefferson nodded.

“I may have also tied her up, so that if she woke up before I got you back here, she wouldn't run off again, or do any damage to me or my home,” he admitted. “I don't trust the papers over much, but...”

“Yeah,” Emma said with a sigh. “Yeah, you did what I expect a lot of people would have, given the situation. Thank you.”

And that was probably the most complex expression of those two little words to ever be uttered. He was being thanked for not liking Regina, for tying up Mary Margaret, for fetching the Sheriff to take her back to the station, for not passing the word on to Regina, for not just holding Mary Margaret hostage all night so that she missed the arraignment in the morning...

He didn't say anything to that, just got out of the car and led the way up to his front door.

“Please come in, Sheriff,” he requested softly, a gentle invitation.

She didn't hesitate to follow him, which was probably the greatest sign of trust that she had shown to anybody since she'd arrived in this town. She'd hesitated to enter Regina's house when she brought Henry back (perfectly understandable, really). She'd resisted the idea of even staying in town the full night when she'd first arrived, only doing so after an accident on the road. She'd initially turned down the offer of a place to stay with Mary Margaret, had slept a few nights in her Bug before she caved. She'd taken at least a full day to think over Huntsman's job offer, and she did need a job when he offered it.

But here, now, he invited her into his home, having told her he had her friend tied up and with a lump on her head that he'd given her, having had a minor breakdown in front of her about her not being Alice, and she didn't hesitate to follow him.

He felt humbled as he led her through his house to her friend.

Mary Margaret, when they reached her, was awake and straining against her bonds, desperation written all over her face. She hadn't noticed them enter.

Emma propped her hands on her hips and frowned at her friend.

“You,” she started.

Mary Margaret's head snapped up.

“Are in big trouble, young lady,” Emma declared firmly.

Mary Margaret shrank in her seat, ashamed of herself and sorry for having disappointed her friend and flat-mate.

Jefferson had to cover his mouth with a hand to hide the smile and stifle the chuckle that wanted to escape at the sight of the daughter scolding the mother, as though their roles were reversed. Once he had the urge to laugh under control, he moved to untie his captive.

She recoiled from him as much as her bonds would allow, but he didn't let that deter him. Nor did he let it bother him when she scurried away from him as fast as she could. After all, he had hit her over the head, and it was entirely possible that Mary Margaret had heard the rumours around Storybrooke of how the billionaire on the hill was only kept out of the asylum by his large money bags.

Such rumours weren't... entirely wrong. What actually kept him out of the asylum was that he never left his house, and thus could not be accused of being a danger to others. He hadn't been physically able to leave his house until Emma rolled into town, at which time he had taken a desperate, grasping hold of the limited freedoms she brought with her. He didn't dare leave the house while Regina might see, but at night... yes, the night was safe.

In the short time that Emma had been in Storybrooke, he had already been able to make an (admittedly amateur, but still quite accurate) map of the whole of the hamlet. Under cover of darkness, he'd investigated every nook and cranny he could get into. He'd even picked the lock on the library and thought to try and find what Graham couldn't in the Mills Crypt. The former hadn't yielded much results. A full search would require a second person to operate the elevator, as there were no stairs in the building, strangely enough. The latter, well, after Graham's death, Regina had installed a very obvious security system around her crypt. He didn't doubt that the alarm would sound right across to Boston if he tried to open the door without having the pass-code.

But that was all beside the point.

It seemed that, while he'd gotten lost in his own head, Emma had chewed out Mary Margaret for her ill-advised escape from her cell, and was moving to hustle her out to the Bug. He wasn't listening, but he was pretty sure there was a minor guilt-trip and some bonding going on in there as well. Had Emma used the word 'family' to describe her relationship with Mary Margaret? That was... that was good. That was progress, even.

And Mary Margaret had decided on her own, after the lecture and the guilt-trip, to go back to the station with Emma and attend her arraignment. That was also good.

“Sorry to run out on you like this,” Emma offered to Jefferson – he'd followed them out – once she'd stuffed Mary Margaret into the back seat.

Jefferson shook his head.

“I understand why you have to,” he said, rather than giving the lie _it's fine_. He'd observed enough of Emma through his telescope to know how she felt about any sort of lie being given to her. He'd dance around his words for her. He'd be honest, if not always forthcoming. She was going to save them all, he knew she would. He owed her his honesty for that, at the very least.

To say  _it's fine_ would have been a lie. He wanted, so much, to keep Emma in his house. To plead for her help. To insist that she believe in all the things she'd been denying. To wax philosophical to her about realms and magic, and help her to understand her own magic, that he could feel just beneath her skin, untapped but so very pure. To beg her to make him a hat that worked, so that he could take Grace away to the Enchanted Forest. To tell her to hit him over the head and remind him again (as he'd reminded himself so many times) why that wasn't an option until  _after_ the curse broke.

“Hey,” she called gently, and took his hand in hers. “Once I've got Mary Margaret squared back away in her cell, where she's safe from being labelled a fugitive -” that was pointedly directed at the ravenette in the car, “- I'll come by and visit, if you'd like me to.”

“I... I'd like that very much,” he answered, a little breathless.

“Then I'll see you,” she promised.

“For breakfast?” he asked, hopefully. “I make great waffles.”

Emma smiled at him.

“I like waffles,” she said. “See you at six? Bright and early, means we'll have more time to talk before I have to get to the arraignment at eight.”

“Six,” Jefferson agreed. “Yes, absolutely.”

Emma nodded, gave his hand a quick squeeze, then slipped out of his fingers and into her car.

~oOo~

“You came back,” was Jefferson's greeting when he opened his front door to find Emma Swan standing at the top of his front stairs. “I know you said you would, but didn't quite dare hope. Good things... don't really happen to me all that much. I thought for sure that your... friend would talk you out of coming back.”

“She tried,” Emma agreed as she stepped closer to him, then through his front door when he shifted aside enough to let her. “We had a good talk on the way back to the station, actually, after she took her turn at lecturing me, only about making friends with crazy people, instead of breaking the law and making herself look extra, extra guilty.”

“Any regrets?” Jefferson asked hesitantly, having winced at the label of 'crazy' being applied to him by someone that Emma cared about.

“Only that I'm going to miss Regina's face when she shows up at the station and Mary Margaret is in her cell,” Emma answered with brutal honesty.

Jefferson huffed a soft laugh, took Emma's hand, and half-dragged her through the house.

“Here,” he said as he guided her into a sitting room. The one where he kept his bull-fiddle and the grand piano. As much as he had said he had rooms filled with the tools of every hobby he'd filled the years with, and as much as that was true for certain hobbies (not all of them, because not every hobby took up that much space), every room he spent any real amount of time in had a musical instrument in it. There was an electric guitar in the hat-making room, because there was nothing like electric guitar for getting out the frustration of another failed hat.

“What are you up to, Jefferson?” Emma asked, confused but willing to go along with whatever he was doing. For now, at least.

“There are certain advantages to living on the hill,” he explained, and drew her over to the telescope set up at the window. “I... I don't go into town. Don't meet people, don't interact with them, but... I do watch. I couldn't be part of it, so I watched.”

Emma bent to look through the telescope at his permitting, inviting gesture for her to do so, and was confronted with the sight of the station. A very clear view of the cells, and her desk. Of Gold arriving and greeting Mary Margaret. He gave her a newspaper and took a seat.

“My god,” Emma breathed, a little on edge now at the idea of having been watched, like the man standing beside her was some creepy stalker, and she'd just willingly entered his house.

“No,” Jefferson denied. “No I – no, not God. God would be able to interfere, not be relegated to just watching. I couldn't even... Well, you got the spiel from Mary Margaret, didn't you? I'm the crazy billionaire on the hill. Can't trust anything that comes out of my mouth.”

“But I do,” Emma assured him gently, earnestly, as she turned away from the telescope and the slightly off-putting view it presented of her work place.

“Nothing I say would be considered valid in a court of law,” Jefferson countered with such sad certainty.

Emma's eyes widened.

“You... know something about the case I'm working?” she queried.

Jefferson nodded, but just moved to take her place at the telescope.

“Regina has pulled up at the station,” he said. “She's looking very smug too.”

Emma forgot about pressing for details on the case. She just wanted to see that look wiped off Regina's face when she saw that Mary Margaret was in her cell.

Disbelief, shock, carefully muted outrage.

“Oh yeah. She was expecting that cell to be empty this morning,” Emma declared. “Damn but I wish I could get her for something and stick _her_ in a cell.”

“She never does anything directly,” Jefferson said with an apologetic shake of his head, “and her patsies are all either too scared or too devoted to turn her in.”

Emma bit down on her tongue quietly, silenced anything else she might say about... anything, right now.

“I'm sorry, I... I invited you for breakfast, but we got distracted,” Jefferson apologised. “Come on, I remember I promised waffles.”

Emma smiled a little at that. Jefferson probably wasn't stable, but if what (admittedly little) she'd learned about him was true, then she didn't blame him for that. Having a friend would probably help him in all sorts of ways, and she knew what it was like to need a friend. She could be that, for him. Even if she did have questions – and she would get around to asking them.

She would.

~oOo~

She was half-way through her second waffle – they really were fantastic, and the fresh strawberries from his own garden, and the home-made whipped cream just, wow – when she asked the question.

“Why have you been spying on me, Jefferson?” she asked. “For that matter, how long have you been spying on me?”

“Second question first,” Jefferson said softly, and set his fork down on his plate solemnly. “Since the night you arrived,” he admitted.

Emma gaped a little at that.

“Emma, I've been stuck, alone and literally unable to physically leave the property boundaries, never mind the town, for _twenty-eight years_. Day after day, everything out there was the same, and everything in here was... well, even gilded, it's still a cage. However I changed my routine, I still couldn't escape the monotony,” he explained.

“Okay,” Emma said slowly. “But... from the night I arrived?” she checked.

“I'd been enjoying Regina's misfortune,” Jefferson confessed. “I don't normally watch Regina, I don't like her, but... She'd been running all over town all afternoon, clearly frantic. So I saw you pull up to her house in the evening.”

Emma nodded in acceptance of this. She knew already that Jefferson didn't like Regina, and watching that woman suffer, even a little, over her missing child – particularly when it sure as hell sounded like Regina was the reason Jefferson didn't have his own daughter – well, she could understand that.

“You rolled into town in your little yellow Bug, and then the clock started to tick, and things started to change,” Jefferson continued his explanation. “How could I not watch? You're... you're special, Emma. Even if you refuse to acknowledge it, or just don't understand the how or why of it. You're special. I know you are, because I see it, every day.”

Emma smiled a little at that. It was really sweet of him to say that to her, and she could tell he was honest and earnest in what he was saying to her. He believed every word he said. She'd never had someone talk to her like this. Never. Not even Henry's father had talked to her like this.

It was really, really nice.

“You brought something precious to Storybrooke,” Jefferson continued. “Magic.”

Emma wanted to cry for him then, because he was still so earnest and honest and believed what he said. She could tell. That lie-detecting super-power of hers. He was telling her the truth as he understood it – but he was talking about magic like it was something real, not something make-believe.

She didn't want to say 'insane' though. Mary Margaret had said that, said it was a damn good reason to stay away from him. Besides, Henry talking about fairy tales like they were real had sounded pretty crazy when she first got to Storybrooke, and she'd already seen what actually  _voicing_ that opinion could do.

“You're kind of broken, aren't you?” she offered gently, instead of calling him insane or crazy or mad or any of those.

He seemed to know what she actually meant though, and his head abruptly dropped down between his shoulders, frustrated in defeat.

“Because I speak the truth?” he asked as he pushed a bit of waffle around his plate. “I'm only talking about what I've _seen_ , Emma,” he insisted.

“Jefferson,” she said, and set aside her cutlery so that she could wrap both hands around the one of his that wasn't holding his fork.

“I can't see, and not believe,” he insisted into his plate. “Not like you've been doing. I don't know how you can see all the things you've seen since you got here, and not believe. I don't know how you can, I don't know how to pretend it, even. Please Emma. Open your eyes,” he entreated to her, and looked up at her again. His eyes were large and earnest and near-desperate as they shone out in his face and bored into her own, tears glistening precariously against his lashes.

“Look around. Wake up,” he said, his words a razor, sharp and whispering against her heart. Not cutting, yet, just lightly tracing over all with the threat of piercing, either way, they were cold and unrelenting. Or was that chilled, polished into an unforgiving mirror, and seductively dangerous as they flashed out at her?

“I don't...” she hesitated.

“Emma, you have magic,” Jefferson said, his hand wrapped around hers now, squeezing at her fingers desperately. “I can feel it beneath your fingers, see it glowing in your eyes.”

“Magic isn't real,” Emma denied sadly. “The world, this world, just as it is, this is real. You have no idea how many times, as a kid, I wished it was the other way around. Wished that I could just... find a rabbit hole and escape to a land of magic, but it's not possible. This is it.”

“I hate Wonderland,” Jefferson groused, and for a moment he retreated into himself.

Emma tried squeezing his fingers to bring him back to her.

His gaze snapped back up to her sharply. His bright blue eyes with their shining glaze of unshed tears and the red rimming around them. True and sincere and irresistible.

“Emma, this is only _a_ real world. Please don't think that the others aren't there, just because you've never seen them,” he entreated. “They all touch each other, brushed up together like so many people in a crowded room, leaving little impressions behind but only connected if someone connects them.”

She shook her head, and wished that she could believe him. She knew he wasn't lying, but his truth just... couldn't be hers.

“Imagination has to come from somewhere,” he insisted. “A story book is no less true than a history book. Emma, please.”

“Jefferson... I want to believe you,” Emma admitted. “Really I do. I want you to be right about this. I want Henry to be right about me -”

“Henry? The queen's father?” he asked, confused.

“Henry, the mayor's adopted kid,” Emma corrected.

“Oh, that Henry. Your Henry,” Jefferson registered, with a relieved smile. “She named him for her father. I'm not surprised. He was the only one that loved her... I'm sorry, I got us distracted. You were saying you wanted your son, and me, to be right about you?”

“I want that so much,” Emma agreed. “But... I can't handle a curse and an evil queen... I'm not sure I could even really handle the idea of Mary Margaret, who I love and adore and feel like family towards... I'm not sure I could handle knowing that she's my mother. A mother who shoved me into a magic wardrobe when I was a baby, rather than holding onto me. A mother who gambled that I, of all people, would be able to 'save' everybody when I can't even save myself.”

God, she could feel herself tearing up.

“It's the worst, isn't it?” he stated, despondently. “I'm sorry, Emma. I didn't mean to drag you in like this. To destroy your reality. But you, of all people, had to know, and I'm truly sorry for that. I am sorry like you wouldn't believe, that the burden of being labelled 'the saviour' got slapped on you like that. You can blame Rumplestiltskin for that one, or maybe Regina, since it's her curse, and a saviour wouldn't be needed if she hadn't cast it. You done?” he asked, and he was looking at her breakfast now, so she knew what the apparently out-of-the-blue question was aimed at.

“Yeah,” she said. “I'll do the clean-up if you like, since you made the waffles.”

“No,” he denied. “Leave it for now. I'll... deal with it later.”

“I can do it now,” Emma assured him. “You look like you need a moment, and I think I could use one too. Let me do this.”

“Thank you, Emma.”

~oOo~

“There exist three options,” Jefferson said quietly when Emma had finished washing the dishes, and was setting them to dry in the rack beside the sink. “Either a person is lying, crazy, or telling the truth. The trouble comes when a painfully honest child says the same thing as a questionably sane, fully grown man.”

“You're really going to try and glom onto my kid Henry's thing?” Emma queried over her shoulder.

“How old do you think I am, Emma? When I tell you that I have been living in this house for twenty-eight years, do you imagine to mean that I spent my childhood here?” Jefferson asked, apparently ignoring her question. “I didn't. My Grace is in your Henry's class. If I had this house, all the things in it, why would I need to do a favour for Regina, just to be able to afford a stuffed rabbit for my little girl?”

Emma had no answer for that. There was no answer for that.

Except for the answer that Henry would have given. The answer that Jefferson was clearly pointing her towards as well.

She set the last of the now-washed dishes into the drying rack.

Jefferson pushed out of his seat, extended a hand to her in offer.

Emma set one hand in his, and gently rubbed at his arm in as comforting a gesture as she could.

He led her to a room full of millinery supplies, with a display of top hats on one wall, and an electric guitar tucked into one corner. There was also another telescope pointing out one of the windows, and it was that she was led to.

“That's my Grace,” he said when Emma obediently bent to look through the telescope. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to watch her day in and day out, happy, with a new family? With a new father? They call her Paige, as if replacing _me_ wasn't enough, the name her mother gave her was taken away as well. She doesn't even know who I am.”

Emma looked away from the sight at the other end of the telescope. Part of her intensely jealous of the little girl, surrounded by a loving family. Emma hadn't ever had that. Part of her intensely sympathetic to Jefferson's story, because yes, she did have a little bit of an idea of what that was like – because Henry was  _Regina's_ son.

And it all smacked of truth to Emma's self-proclaimed super-power. She could even see it, as she studied Jefferson's face, and went back to the telescope to look at the little girl down the other end having breakfast with her family. They had the same mouth, the same shape to their faces. That little girl had no features in common with the two adults who sat at the table with her.

“What good is this house, these things, if I can’t share them with her?” Jefferson asked brokenly.

“Why don't you reach out to her?” Emma asked in turn. “Approach her, tell her who you are?”

“Because... as torturous as the way things _are_ is for me, I couldn't be so cruel to my little girl as to rip away the happiness that she does have,” Jefferson answered. “It's hard enough to live somewhere that you don't belong, but to know that you don't belong, to know why and how and that you lack the power to change it... because I just know that, if I ever did approach her, then Regina would do something...”

Emma didn't think. She just moved. She slipped her arms between Jefferson's, around his chest and up his back. One hand pressed between his shoulder-blades, the other combed into his hair. Both pulled him to her.

“I'm not losing my mind. I'm not crazy. This is real,” he whispered into Emma's shoulder, but she knew he was telling himself.

“That's right,” she agreed. Because she had to. Because she wanted to. Because... Emma closed her eyes as she held him tight to her, let herself be held tight to him.

She wasn't one-hundred percent convinced yet. Not yet. How could a simple, three-letter-word like  _yet_ mean so damn much?

When she left Jefferson's house, Emma knew that she would go and see Henry. She'd ask for a look at his book. She'd look to see if Jefferson was in it anywhere. If he was... if he was, then that would be the last of her walls ripped down. The last of her defences torn away. All her rebuttals gone up in so much smoke.

“More than anything in the world, I want to believe in magic,” Emma said. “I want to believe that you're right. That Henry's right. I don't want to be a saviour, but if that's the price for there being magic in the world...”

“Everyone wants a magic solution to their problems, but they all refuse to believe in magic,” Jefferson quipped. “Now, how crazy is that? If you can't believe in something, it will never happen.”

“And what do you believe in?” Emma asked.

“You,” Jefferson answered at once. “You can break the curse. The one that keeps everybody but you trapped and miserable in this town. You can do that. If you don't want to be a saviour after that, then... as long as it's a good day, and I'm not frightened that I'm back in Wonderland, I won't push it. I don't mind. Just one curse to break. Just one. I believe in you. You can get it to work. You could get my hat to work too, I'm sure you could... no. No, I won't ask that. Taking Grace back wouldn't make her remember. Emma... Emma, please. I believe in you.”

“Then I'll start believing in magic,” Emma promised, very acutely aware that this man had just pulled himself back from the raggedy edge by his teeth, “and I'll try to open myself up more. If you'll help me? Because however much I'm willing to believe in magic and other worlds and curses and evil queens... I _can't_ believe that I can do this alone.”

Jefferson shifted in that way that meant he was going to step back, break the embrace they'd just shared.

Emma hoped it was just to look her in the eye and tell her that he'd be there for her.

“I have one more thing to show you,” he said, which was not at all what she'd wanted to hear from him just then.

All the same, Emma let Jefferson take her hand and lead her to another room, which contained another telescope, and she obediently walked over and put her eye to it.

A cabin in the woods. It had one window, which had no glass on it, and through which Emma could see an emaciated, filthy, but familiar form.

“One of the men who do... what they're told by whoever pays them... moved her there this morning,” Jefferson said. “About an hour before you came up. I didn't get a clear look at his face, I'm sorry. Uh, she was unconscious, and I think they're keeping her drugged. Are you... are you mad with me, for not telling you straight away?”

“No,” Emma answered, and was a little surprised that it was the honest truth, and not a platitude given to ease guilt. “I'd have run off to get her straight away, and... we needed to have this morning, for both of us.”

Jefferson breathed a deep, grateful sigh.

Emma looked up at him for a moment, just took in all his features, then she rose up on her toes and placed a kiss on his cheek.

“I'll see you later,” she promised. “I've got to... go be some crazy mixture of sheriff and saviour right now.”

“I understand,” he answered solemnly.

“Jefferson,” Emma said softly, and reached out to cup his face in her hand. “Thank you. For helping me.”

~oOo~

There was no noise from the cabin as Emma approached. There was, however, only one set of boot prints in the mud, and it both entered and left the cabin, meaning that the woman was almost certainly alone in there. So much the easier for the rescue, so much the harder for getting anybody to properly get the blame they deserved for abducting Kathryn and framing Mary Margaret for a murder.

As Emma carefully carried the unconscious woman out of the cabin and into her car, she could see that the woman didn't have a scratch on her, apart from what looked like some air-bag rash, which was mostly healed. There were going to be a lot of questions asked in the coming days. After all, someone had said that the heart in Mary Margaret's jewellery box was Kathryn's.

Which was why Emma wasn't going to take Kathryn to the hospital, even if she probably needed some of the care she'd be able to get there.

There was also the issue of Mary Margaret being charged with the murder of a woman who was alive to deal with, just quickly. Just to cover all bases though, she did place a call to the hospital while she drove, asking them to send a doctor, a nurse, and a wheelchair to the court house.

Emma got to the court house before anybody from the hospital though, and lacking a wheelchair, carefully lifted Kathryn up into her arms.

“Sir Judge,” Emma called as she walked into the courtroom. “I have some new evidence that needs to be submitted in the case of the _supposed_ murder of Kathryn Nolan.”

“My god...” the judge breathed, eyes wide and staring.

“I've already called the hospital, requesting a doctor, nurse, and a wheelchair for Kathryn,” Emma said. “But I thought it might be an idea to go ahead with the trial, since we've got so much of the evidence together, even if Mary Margaret can officially be cleared of the murder charge.”

“Absolutely,” the judge agreed quickly. “Miss Blanchard, you are hereby declared innocent in this case, but as you are something of a material witness, if you could please remain?”

Mary Margaret nodded, and at Gold's ushering, moved from the defendant's chair into the seating just behind.

There was no absolute conclusion. There wasn't enough evidence to point the finger at anybody, sadly. Not even when Kathryn woke up, part-way through the proceedings. She said she'd had a car accident, the air bags deployed, and the next time she woke up she was in a dark room, maybe a basement, with food. She never saw or heard anybody.

Emma was called upon to explain how she had found Kathryn, and said she'd gotten an anonymous call early that morning, before she'd even gotten into her office. Someone – they didn't give their name – had spotted someone carrying a person with long blonde hair. The whole town knew about the case with Kathryn, so that Emma had been called immediately made perfect sense to everybody present.

Emma also stated her intent to return to the cabin where she'd found Kathryn, and check the place over for any clues as to who had been holding her. She did not, however, give the exact location of that cabin. She didn't want to risk the perpetrator returning and setting the place on fire, however unlikely and difficult that would be, given the amount of rain in the area lately.

Privately, Emma knew that finding justice for Kathryn would mean that she couldn't go and visit Henry as soon as she would like. Couldn't ask to borrow his book and check to see if Jefferson was in it.

Where Jefferson was in it, because dammit all, she was starting to believe. Just a little bit.

She did, however, have to stop by the station for evidence bags, rubber gloves, and a camera so she could photograph anything pertinent before she bagged it.

The phone rang.

“Hello?” Emma said quickly, phone shoved between shoulder and ear while she continued to dig around in her desk for the things she needed.

“ _The cabin is on fire_ ,” Jefferson's voice came down the line.

“Shit!” Emma hissed. She grabbed what she'd gathered already and ran for her car.

Even driving as fast as she could, that cabin was a good ways out of Storybrooke, the station was right smack in the middle of town, and there was no telling how long the cabin had been burning before Jefferson checked his telescope and spotted the flames.

Flames that, as Emma pulled up outside of the cabin, had moved out from inside, so far as she could tell. So at least there was no immediate danger of a forest fire being started by this.

Emma called the fire station, and while she waited for them to show up, she did her best to clear the area around the cabin, so that the flames wouldn't catch on anything if something fell out of the lit cabin.

When the fire was out, Emma borrowed a hard-hat from one of the firemen and went in with another to survey the damage. Everything was so much charcoal.

“Not one of the cheaper agents, then,” the fireman observed. “Things like alcohol, kerosene, they don't burn hot enough to do this kind of damage.”

When Emma got back to the station, filthy, tired, and frustrated, the sight of a vase full of cheerful tulips with an apologetic note from Sydney Glass was, for some reason, enough to send her over the edge. She hurled the vase at the filing cabinets, and felt like she could breathe easier after the probably-not-cheap thing shattered against the metal drawers, and the flowers and water were in a mess all over the floor.

Marginally calmed, Emma moved to clean up the mess she'd made. Only to find something that made her angry all over again.

A bug. Not the leggy kind that lives on plants, but the kind with a tiny little microphone and a transmitter. She grabbed a rubber glove off her desk, picked up the bug, and dropped it into an evidence bag.

Emma needed to get out of the office before she tore the whole place apart looking for more. Oh, she would look for more, but she didn't need to look like a crazy person while she did. Besides, if she wasn't calm and methodical about checking the office for more of these things, she might miss one, and she could not deal with that.

She needed to see her kid.


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey, Henry,” she called over as she slid onto the stone bench beside him. Storybrooke really did have a nice school building, nice lunch space, good grounds...

Regina sure knew how to treat kids. Well, at least from a distance. She was very much half-right, half-wrong for more personal encounters. She'd done well raising Henry, after all. He was smart, polite, generally well behaved. He just wasn't happy.

Emma remembered that someone once said kids grew up to be their parents. She remembered that expression very clearly because she could remember wondering, the first time she'd heard it, what that meant for the foster kids who a) never knew their parents, and b) got bumped from home to home to home... like her. Now, she couldn't help but wonder what that said about Regina, and the people who had raised her.

If Jefferson was to be believed (and Emma was slowly coming around to the idea that he  _was_ , he really, really was), then Regina had named the little boy with the story book after her father. So he'd likely been the one Regina learned the good parenting skills from. The bad parenting skills were therefore most likely learned from her mother.

Emma resolved that, should she ever meet the woman who birthed Regina, she would stay a long, long way away from her and be ten times more wary than she was of Regina and Gold combined.

“Hi Emma,” Henry said with a smile. “How's Mary Margaret?”

“She's good,” Emma answered. “Should be back next week, since she's been cleared of all charges.”

“That's great!” Henry declared, his face lit up like a light bulb he was so happy. “How'd you do it?”

“Well, I found Kathryn alive, so that probably helped,” Emma suggested with a smile.

“You – what? Emma, that's fantastic!” Henry praised. “I knew you had it in you to be the saviour!”

“I didn't do it alone,” Emma censured lightly.

“But you did it,” Henry countered with a happy shrug. “That's the point.”

“Hi Henry,” a little girl called, and stopped by them for just a second, a shy little smile on her face as her eyes lingered on Henry.

Henry smiled back, but didn't say anything, and the girl continued on with two other girls who had pulled ahead when she'd stopped to say hi.

A little girl that Emma recognised, and all the better for seeing her up close, rather than down a telescope.

“Who is that?” Emma asked carefully as she watched the girl go.

“Her name is Paige,” Henry answered easily – the girl looked over her shoulder about the same time as Henry said her name. “She goes to school with me.”

Well, that much was obvious, as she was wearing the girls' uniform for the school Henry attended.

“She's pretty,” Emma offered.

“Emma!” Henry objected, but his cheeks pinked – kid was so naturally pale it was as obvious as the sun on a cloudless day.

“Henry, do you have your storybook with you?” Emma asked, willing to drop the teasing.

Henry's hand went straight to the strap of his backpack.

“Can I see it?” she requested.

“Yeah,” he answered, “why?” Even as he asked though, Henry was quick to pull the bag off his back and the book out from within.

“I'm just curious about something,” Emma said, deliberately vague.

She flipped through the pages until she came to a picture of a man, kneeling on a tiled floor, as he held a top hat reverently before him. The angle wasn't the best for getting a view of his face, but the mouth and the chin... they were right. The hair was longer, but the same colour. The choice of clothes even resonated, and no one else in Storybrooke dressed like that.

The next page had a much better picture. It was him. His hair was long and unkempt like the previous picture, but it was definitely him. The sweetly smiling little girl facing him, golden hair spilling out of a richly embroidered hood that hid half her face... that was definitely the little girl that had just called hi to Henry.

She skimmed the text on the facing page.

Jefferson's name was there. The book said that his daughter's name was Grace, and that since he had hung up his hat, after the death of his wife Alice, they had been slipping into poverty. And then the Evil Queen came. Emma didn't read the story in detail, just skimmed for key words. It was enough. She closed the book.

“What?” Henry asked. “What is it?”

“I'm not sure,” Emma hedged. “Can I hold onto this for a little while?” she asked. “I wanna check a few things.”

Henry's expression moved from concerned to delighted.

“Absolutely,” he agreed.

The bell rang then, summoning students back to their classes.

“You gotta get to class,” Emma urged him off. “Go, be good, learn stuff.”

“Okay. Bye Emma!”

~oOo~

“You came back... again,” Jefferson said, stunned, when he opened his door and Emma stood there, the expression on his face like that of a little boy who'd always been told that there was leprechaun gold at the end of the rainbow, and had just been shown how to get there.

“You always gonna greet me like that?” Emma asked with a wry twist to her lips.

“I might,” Jefferson admitted.

“Can I come in?” Emma requested.

Jefferson hurriedly moved aside, pulling the door with him, so that Emma had room to step past him through the door and once more into his house.

“So, Kathryn is okay,” Emma started while Jefferson closed the door and he led her into the kitchen, where he started on a pot of tea.

“The cabin where she was is nothing but a burned out husk, Mary Margaret is off the hook for murder...” Emma took a deep, fortifying breath, “and you just might have a believer on your hands.”

Jefferson looked up from the teapot sharply.

“What convinced you?” he asked.

“I said might. I'm still working on it,” Emma protested weakly.

She could feel that 'yet' looming ever closer though. The obsessive imagination of Henry had been reconfirmed by a grown man who only knew of the mayor's child by reputation. In painful, colourful detail that only talking to Henry would have given a person unless they already knew. If August Wayne Booth, who talked to Henry in Granny's Diner all the time, had tried to convince Emma of the story, she wouldn't believe him. Apart from likely having gotten the details from Henry (he was apparently also in on Operation Cobra), August was a writer, and Emma had heard of writers who were unable to recognise the line between where the fantasy they were writing  _ended_ , and where the real world began.

Though, to hear Jefferson tell it,  _a_ real world. All of them lined up and touching. So maybe it was more that those writers just couldn't see the divide between the world they were writing about and the one they were supposed to be living in.

Either way, Emma wouldn't trust August's word on the reality, or lack thereof, of the curse.

But for Jefferson, for the lonely man on the hill, the one who made compelling arguments full of logic that Emma could understand, even if it was also peppered with talk about magic that she didn't... for him, Emma could believe.

“What am I supposed to do?” Emma asked, feeling a little bit frightened and small. “Break the curse, that's been shoved down my throat since before I even got here. Henry started preaching while we were in the car and I was bringing him back after he came and found me. But... what does that even mean? How? I've never saved anything -”

“You saved Kathryn,” Jefferson interrupted in protest, still half-bent over the tea things. He was fixing up the pot on automatic at this point. “And Mary Margaret. You saved two little kids who Regina was sending off to social services because they were on their own. You saved their father too, when you reunited them. You saved Ashley's baby from Mr Gold, and her boyfriend from his fears and his father. You saved Ruby from her insecurities... You saved Moe French from Mr Gold's anger, and Mr Gold himself from diving deeper into his own self-loathing...”

“Most of that is just sheriff-type stuff, or friend-type stuff. I'm not cut out to be a saviour,” Emma protested.

“Then don't think of it that way,” Jefferson suggested quickly.

He didn't want Emma to give up the fight now, not when he could see that she was starting to believe. He had to get his daughter back, and breaking the curse was the only way to do that, since just kidnapping her to the Enchanted Forest through a portal wasn't actually guaranteed to work – something he'd spent a few hours convincing himself of every time he finished making a new hat that didn't work.

“Back in the Enchanted Forest, magic was a really common thing. Midwives were almost always a little skilled with magic as well. Everybody knew they could call on Rumplestiltskin if they needed something big. There were enchanted weapons and magical waters... And some member of the ruling class was always being cursed some way or other,” Jefferson explained. “Your mother was cursed to sleep, and your father broke that, right? You don't have to be a 'saviour' to break a curse.”

“Then why am I getting slapped with a heavy title like that?” Emma asked in an almost frightened little whisper.

“Because the curse you have to break was cast over the whole of the Enchanted Forest, and grabbed a few people from different realms as well,” Jefferson answered softly. “So when you break this curse, you're not just saving your True Love, you're saving everybody.”

“I don't have a True Love,” Emma denied. “I've got a long track record of failed relationships.”

“It wasn't True Love between me and my Alice either,” Jefferson offered. “She was more in love with the adventure of portal jumping than she was with me,” he admitted, a little ruefully.

“And when your girl loves your job more than you...” Emma surmised.

Jefferson shrugged in agreement.

“She did love me as well, and I adored her. Grace wouldn't have happened otherwise, but it wasn't True Love,” Jefferson reiterated. “Your first love isn't always going to be your True Love, and that's alright. You'll find it some day, I know you will.”

“I'm not sure I'm worth it,” Emma protested softly.

“You are,” Jefferson insisted, words firm and hands warm as they held hers. “After the curse is broken, what do you want to do? What do you want to happen?”

“I want to be able to be Henry's mother,” Emma answered at once. “I want to be able to hold my mother, and her to know I'm her daughter. I want to introduce you to my family, and I want you to introduce me to your Grace.”

The expression of shocked wonderment on Jefferson's face was enough to set Emma's ears and brain to catching up with what her mouth had run away with. She blushed.

“I have no idea where that last bit came from,” she admitted softly.

Jefferson straightened and set aside the tea things. He circled around the kitchen island until he stood directly in front of her, less than a foot away.

“I'd really like to introduce you to my Grace,” he said softly. “I think she'd like you.”

“I know Henry would love you,” Emma countered. “Heck, I could introduce you tomorrow, he'd be thrilled. Someone else who knows about the curse.”

“No,” Jefferson denied, and his hands were suddenly, tightly wrapped around hers. “If you do that now, before the curse breaks, then you'll forget to believe. Because I'll know Henry, so anything I say about magic would be suspect to you.”

She frowned. Whether because he sounded like he knew her a lot better than someone she'd only met the night before  _should_ , or because she really, really liked the way his hands felt as they held onto her own, she wasn't sure.

“Emma, I've watched you enough through that telescope that I know,” Jefferson elaborated, taking her frown to be confusion or denial over his assertion. “I didn't have to hear what you said all those times to be able to guess. Your body language can be quite demonstrative,” he added with a faint smile.

Emma squeezed his fingers tightly in her own, and rocked forward on her feet and hid her face against the brocade fabric of Jefferson's vest.

“You have no idea what I'm supposed to do to break the curse either, do you?” she asked, but it was a rhetorical question.

“Curses were never my thing,” Jefferson admits easily. “I was a portal jumper, before Regina trapped me in Wonderland and stole my hat.”

Emma recalled that the book had said something like that. Jefferson's portals were through a magical hat. A hat that had certain rules about how many people could travel through it.

“If you want answers about the curse, then the person to talk to would be Rumplestiltskin,” Jefferson suggested, though the suggestion was warily given. “He's always been the one with the answers when it came to knowledge about magic. He'll probably charge for the information though. Consummate business man, Rumplestiltskin.”

“You did business with him?” Emma asked. She pushed herself back upright enough to look up into Jefferson's face, surprised by the revelation.

Jefferson shrugged easily.

“Sure,” he agreed, untroubled by this fact of his past. “He had lots of gold and took no joy in leaving his castle, but he needed things. I needed to eat and I had a magic hat that could take me anywhere, so I went and got him the things he needed. Rumplestiltskin could be very generous with his gold once you got on his good side, too.”  
  


~oOo~

There was a bit of a party at Mary Margaret's loft apartment to celebrate her proven innocence and her return to freedom – and her own home again. There was bunting up that said  _Welcome Home Mary Margaret_ , and there was bright red punch and all sorts of treats from Granny's on the table around a cake that had the same message.

“All of these people, just to welcome me home?” Mary Margaret questioned softly as she stood by Emma, and the punch bowl.

“You've got a lot of friends,” Emma pointed out.

“It didn't feel like that yesterday,” Mary Margaret countered, her words soft, so as not to carry to all the guests in her home, but pointed all the same. That said, Mary Margaret picked up the tray of glasses that Emma been carefully filling, and went to share them out and mingle with her guests.

It wasn't long before Mary Margaret was waylaid by Henry, who had a massive card that was made and signed by all the kids in Mary Margaret's class. It had maybe not the most tactful epithet written inside, but it got some weak laughter from the congregated guests when Mary Margaret read it aloud.

“And I got you a bell,” Henry added, and held out a wrapped box. It was very nicely wrapped too, which meant that the kid either had skills, or connections.

Emma hadn't done it, and she'd bet Regina wouldn't have on pain of death either. Speaking of...

“Hey, Henry, we should get you home before Regina finds out where you are,” Emma suggested, and turned him towards the door. “That wouldn’t be pretty.”

Neither was the face on the other side of the door, hand raised and clearly about to knock. It wasn't Regina, come to bring down the celebratory spirit, at least. Nor was it one of her many faithful lackeys. David Nolan was almost as bad though.

Emma checked over her shoulder, to see if Mary Margaret wanted him there. If she did, then Emma would step aside and let the guy in. But – nope, Mary Margaret spotted him over Emma's shoulder and shook her head, eyes wide and very clearly saying _no_. That was enough for her. Best friend duty dictated that she keep the man away from Mary Margaret as long as she wanted such aid. It didn't matter if the two were her parents, married, and madly in love with each other – because right now, neither one of them remembered that.

That was Snow White and Prince Charming, not Mary Margaret Blanchard and David Nolan.

“This,” Emma said as she carefully kept the door barred with her body, “is not the time or place for anything you have to say to her.” She kept her voice gentle, and just a touch apologetic. The guy might actually be her father, after all.

“I just wanted to -” David tried.

“Not right now,” Emma cut him off. “If you want to be helpful though, maybe you could take Henry back to Regina's? Is that okay with you, Kiddo?”

“Sure,” Henry agreed, a little confused – the boy just sometimes failed to comprehend that a happy ending in his book didn't automatically mean sunshine and roses now – but willing to play along.

David looked lost and a little frustrated at the arrangements going on, being made around him like this, but he gave a capitulating sigh all the same, and nodded his assent.

“Sorry,” Emma offered, “and thanks for taking Henry.”

David nodded.

Henry waved a last goodbye, and with a smile on her face just for her son, Emma shut the door.

“Hard to let him go, isn't it?” a voice from behind her spoke. A familiar voice.

Emma turned, and was completely unsurprised to see Mr Gold walking (slowly, and with his stick to hold him up, as usual) over to her.

“Your son,” he clarified.

“Yeah,” Emma agreed, and maybe she was seeing things, but behind the polite nothing-talk, she was absolutely certain that she could see the light of sincere, painful understanding in his eyes as he stepped out of those shadows he'd been loitering in throughout the party. “Pretty much the hardest thing. I'm thinking of starting a support group.”

“Don't know how many takers you'll get around here, Sheriff,” Mr Gold said carefully, and there was just something about the way he said that...

“I know at least one,” Emma countered, and she was thinking of Jefferson, but from the sharp look he sent her for that comment, she got the impression that Gold might need such a support group as well. Crazy as that sounded. There was no solid evidence to back the claim, but that look and her gut said so. It's not like he wasn't old enough to be a father, after all, so crazy as it sounded, it could be possible. “But I've got more immediate things to think about. Like finding out just which side you're on.”

“Side? Oh, Miss Swan, are you implying that I'm working with Regina, or against her?” Mr Gold asked, blatantly (if also only mildly) offended.

“Not sure,” Emma admitted. “Maybe diagonal. You play both sides as it suits your purpose, whatever that might be.”

“Well, you keep working on that.” He hadn't called her wrong, so even if he hadn't confirmed either, Emma chocked that up as a win. “My question is about something else. What do you know about him?” Mr Gold asked, and pointed to one of the guests.

Emma looked over, followed his finger to see who he was pointing at.

“Goes by August. He’s a writer,” Emma offered up once she saw who he was pointing to. It figured that Mr Gold would be curious about the one person in town who didn't owe him rent. He'd been curious about her too, when she'd first arrived. They'd got their introduction a lot sooner though. August had managed to be in town for quite a while now, and had somehow managed to dodge Gold.

“A typewriter wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in stubble. Why?” she asked – because even though she could guess all sorts of reasons why Mr Gold wanted to know, she wanted to hear from him his reasoning. Better than guesswork was answers, after all.

“He was poking around my office at the shop today,” Mr Gold divulged.

“You want me to haul him up for trespassing?” Emma guessed.

Gold shook his head.

“Not sure,” he admitted. “August Wayne Booth. Clearly a false name. There’s one thing I know about – it’s names.”

“Yes, you're a regular Rumplestiltskin,” Emma tossed out. She hadn't missed that he'd come up with the full name after she'd only supplied the first.

As if that weren't confirmation enough, the sharp look he sent her for the quip was practically damning. For Regina. That was a look that told Emma that there really was a curse, and that Mr Gold knew about it, remembered who he 'really was'.

Emma had spent the afternoon after the arraignment with Jefferson, going over Henry's book and trying to find any clues, any help or hints. Too much of the useful information – in regards to breaking the curse anyway – was gone, torn out by Henry shortly after Emma's arrival in Storybrooke, but Cinderella's story was in there, and it included the capture of Rumplestiltskin.

Jefferson had suggested that, if Snow White had access to a captive Rumplestiltskin, she probably would have gone to him for whatever answers he could give. Rumplestiltskin was rather infamous for knowing too much of everything that was going on. Emma had lamented not having a similarly handy future-seeing Imp, and that had set Jefferson to ferreting out who, in Storybrooke, was his old employer.

Henry might have been completely clueless, but it took Jefferson less than an hour to put it all together – and he claimed it only took him as long as it did because of the lack of gilded-green skin, curly grey hair, grandiose theatrics, and manic little giggle.

And Emma had just confirmed it.

Which meant that she'd just confirmed the whole curse as well. After all, she had enough dealing with Mr Gold to be able to state with absolute certainty that the guy was totally sane. Occasionally violent, but if Moe French was the father of Belle, who Rumplestiltskin believed to be dead, then Emma didn't blame him entirely for that episode.

“Do my eyes deceive me, or is that the face of a believer?” Mr Gold asked quietly.

“I've accused you of being a bastard a couple of times, but never blind,” Emma allowed. “Anyway, some writers go by pseudonyms. What's it matter?” she asked, pulling the subject back to August, and away from herself.

“You trust him?” Gold countered, not giving her an answer, a sort of passive-aggressive punishment for her dismissing the topic of the curse, even if she had pulled it back to something he was initially interested in.

“I haven't decided yet.”

~oOo~

Emma was busy. Busy like an overworked, underpaid worker bee. There were questions that had to be asked about the faked DNA results, about how a weapon got into the apartment in the first place – because as it was now known that there was no murder, therefore no need for a murder _weapon_ , then it was a lot more clear to even the obnoxious DA that someone had tried to frame Mary Margaret.

Since it was now being investigated as a frame-job and an attempt to pervert the course of justice, even the fact that there had been a key in Mary Margaret's cell could be safely discussed.

There was also the case of arson that had been perpetrated on the building that Kathryn had been rescued from. Emma was being run off her feet, all the investigating that had to be done. It wasn't normally in a sheriff's purview to do all the CSI stuff, but Emma was kind of _it_ for the Storybrooke Police Force.

Besides all that, she had to try and figure out how to break the curse – and thinking about that led Emma to thinking about what would come after. She'd never been one for long-term planning before, but lately she'd been exposed to the consequences of acting without some sort of forethought involved.

There was the favour that she owed to Gold to consider, but until he called it in and told her what he wanted, she realistically had to set it aside. There was no point driving herself up the wall about the matter.

The phone rang.

“Sheriff's office,” Emma answered it.

“ _Sheriff Swan, I wonder if you might have a moment of time to discuss a delicate matter? Perhaps over tea in the back of my shop?_ ” Mr Gold requested, skipping over the social niceties and pointless small-talk in favour of getting straight to the matter of why he was calling at all.

“Anything to do with that little conversation we had in a quiet corner of Mary Margaret's welcome back party?” Emma checked. “Or should I bring my handcuffs and gun?”

“ _The former,_ ” Mr Gold answered. “ _When can I expect you?_ ”

Emma thought about it a moment, eyed the pile of paperwork on her desk, and thought again.

“Honestly Gold, after dinner would probably be better,” she admitted. “I've got a lot of work to do in the wake of Kathryn's living status, and no extra hands to help.”

“ _Perhaps I could send Pinocchio around to assist you?_ ” Mr Gold suggested.

“That's who August is?” Emma nearly yelped.

“ _Indeed. We had quite the_ fun _little confession time out in the woods a little earlier,_ ” Mr Gold growled.

If Emma had to guess, she'd lay money that Booth was only alive because murder had proved so much harder to get away with in this land. And/or that Gold had a use for him.

“ _Shall I send him over to assist you, Sheriff?_ ” Mr Gold asked again.

“Yeah, sure,” Emma agreed with a tired sigh. “He's not my first choice for who I'd trust with this kind of thing, but my first choice is a bit busy right now.”

“ _...May I ask whose assistance you would prefer, and why they cannot help you?_ ” Mr Gold enquired.

“Jefferson,” Emma answered at once. “I understand he's an old business associate of yours?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Mr Gold agreed, and there was a faint tone to his voice that suggested he hadn't realised that Jefferson was even in Storybrooke, and couldn't fathom how he'd missed the man.

It probably came from the fact that Regina had given him his very big house to him proper, rather than having to pay rent to Mr Gold – something which everyone else in Storybrooke, from the nuns to Regina herself, had to do. An extra measure to ensure his isolation.

“Yeah, well, he's busy cleaning up his house, putting away the dangerous and the creepy, ready for when I break the curse and he gets his daughter back,” Emma explained. “He might also, possibly, be plotting some kind of revenge against Regina, but he hasn't admitted to that.”

“ _Well, you are the Sheriff,_ ” Gold pointed out. “ _You might be duty-bound to arrest him if he told you the details._ ”

“Which is why I haven't pressed,” Emma agreed. “Okay, so... back to why you actually called me. We kinda got sidetracked.”

“ _Yes. After dinner would be fine, around about eight,_ ” Mr Gold said. “ _... and bring Jefferson._ ”

“Sure.”

Emma hung up the phone, and got back to work. Work that was interrupted an hour later when Regina arrived, and declared that Emma had a confession to hear. When it was Sydney Glass who gave the confession, rather than Regina herself, Emma stamped down on her desire to call out the other woman on the attempt to feed her bullshit like it was gospel. It wouldn't help anything, and would only put Regina's back up.

Besides, with a confession, the DA would say there was no further reason to continue the investigation, and if she continued to pursue, then it could hurt the Station's budget.

~oOo~

They arrived separately. Emma drove up in her little yellow bug, parked it, and let herself in through the front door – which had been left unlocked for her. Jefferson slipped through the shadows on foot, like he was one of them himself in his all-grey clothing, and tapped lightly on the back window-pane. Gold let him in.

August Booth was the last to arrive, and when he did, he was quick to sit down on a chair, his breathing heavy, and his legs stretched out straight in front of him. He had been useful around the Station earlier, just as Gold had promised he would be. When Emma had closed everything down for the night, August had gone back to Granny's for dinner, after which he had left directly to Gold's shop – on foot, the same as Jefferson, as the motorbike he usually rode was rather noticeable. He hadn't stuck to the shadows and back ways though.

Gold, once he'd waved Jefferson to the teapot, took his own seat at the spinning wheel that he had only just very recently moved to a central position in the back room of his shop.

As far as war councils went, if this was that, then Emma personally thought it could be improved upon. At the same time, however, the only people she could think of who would actually be helpful in this situation... well, Graham was dead, and Henry... it would almost definitely be past his bed time by the time they were done, if it wasn't already.

She might have maybe asked Ruby and Granny – because no one does information networking like people who run a diner – but they were ignorant under the curse and therefore useless when it came to figuring out a plan on how to break said curse.

“You know, it occurred to me to wonder what name you prefer,” Jefferson said, a motion with his teacup indicating that he was talking to Gold, as he sat down. “Rumplestiltskin is rather a mouthful, after all.”

“You should have heard Regina's first attempt at calling me, reading my name from a book her mother had from me,” Gold scoffed. “For the sake of both ease and anonymity, let's stick with 'Gold',” he suggested.

“Good,” Emma said with clear relief, “because I'm not sure I could take things as seriously as I get the feeling I'm going to need to if I had to call you Rumplestiltskin. No offence or anything.”

“None taken, I assure you,” Gold said gently. “But, onto the matters at hand, and the actual reason that I called you, Miss Swan. You may recall that, shortly after your arrival in town, you made a deal with me.”

August's head whipped around to stare at Emma in terrified shock.

Jefferson, having been watching all the events that unfolded around Emma since she'd arrived, simply sipped at his tea.

“Ashley kept her kid in return for a favour, yeah,” Emma agreed. “Or, Cinderella, whatever. I'm guessing you've decided on what favour you want?”

“Something like that,” Gold agreed. “Miss Swan... I'm sure you've figured out through our interactions that I have a tiny bit more experience of what it is to be a parent than most people in this town would suspect. Before I became the Dark One, I was a normal man, and I had a son. His mother abandoned us when he was four. Many years later, after I had become the Dark One, my son and I were separated. He wanted me to be as I was before the curse, but the only way to stop being the Dark One is to die. My boy went to the Blue Fairy, got a magic bean, and said we could start over in a land without magic – because I couldn't be the Dark One if there was no magic. I will admit right now that I was terrified when the portal opened up. I'd travelled that way before, and nothing good came of it. Besides, I hadn't my son's optimism. I would once again be a lame old man, with no way to take care of my son in a strange new land...”

“Your kid went through, and you stayed behind,” Emma guessed.

“To my eternal regret,” Gold agreed. “Many things happened over the intervening centuries, but thanks to our little wooden friend here,” Gold directed a sneer at August.

The man winced.

“I now know that my son is alive and well, if a grown man now, rather than the boy I remember, and apparently, Miss Swan, you have – and I'll phrase this delicately – _met_ him,” Gold said.

“I meet a lot of people,” Emma said carefully.

“A lot of people don't make me a grandfather, my dear,” Gold stated plainly.

Emma's eyes bugged at the implication.

“Well, shit,” Jefferson offered, surprised.

“A sentiment I find myself agreeing with,” Gold admitted with a tired sigh. “After all, I'm the one who procured Henry for Regina. You were right, Miss Swan, earlier today when you said I worked diagonal to Regina, and play whatever side suits my purpose. The difficulty you've been facing in figuring me out is that you didn't know my purpose, until now.”

“You've been trying to find your son,” Jefferson said, the first one to click to it. “I remember you asked me once for a pair of shoes that could take you to a land without magic. You've been trying to get here since...”

“Since long before I manipulated Regina into actions that suited my needs,” Gold said. “Yes, I made the curse that brought us all here. I couldn't cast it though, so I had to find someone else. I found what I was looking for, more or less, in Regina's mother. Cora is just the sort of spiteful creature to get others twisted up just right for intervention from... well, anybody. Lucky me, the Blue Fairy is a prejudiced, sanctimonious bug who declared Regina a lost cause simply because of who her mother was, which left her free for my own manipulations.”

“You made Regina the monster she is now,” Emma breathed, shocked and a little horrified.

“Not totally,” Gold denied. “Her mother made her, for that matter, so did yours. I just gave her choices she should have turned down.”

“Wait, _my_ mother?” Emma asked.

“Naive, stupid, well-intentioned little Snow White... or perhaps clever, insidious, self-serving little Snow White, told the wicked Cora that Regina planned to run away with her True Love. This shortly before Regina was to marry Snow's father the King, which would have fulfilled Cora's wish to have her daughter be Queen, and Snow's desire to have another mother,” Gold explained. “Cora killed him, Regina blamed Snow White, the rest is bloody history.”

“Regina was obsessed with bringing him back for a while,” Jefferson recalled. “Even let Frankenstein at the cadaver, if it meant a chance to get him back. That had to be one of my least favourite jobs you had me do,” he added.

“I'd apologise, but it wouldn't be sincere,” Gold offered. “I believe we're getting off track though.”

“You made the curse because you wanted to find your son, Regina cast the curse, and it turns out that my kid is your grandson,” Emma summarised.

“Yes,” Gold agreed. “Which brings us up to the matter of breaking this curse.”

“True Love?” Emma guessed darkly. “I'm not sure Neal qualifies for that for me any more.”

“Neal?” Jefferson repeated, brow furrowed in confusion. “That's not exactly a name you'd find in the Enchanted Forest...”

“He changed it,” August added. “He goes by Neal Cassidy now, but it used to be Baelfire. Doesn't want anything to do with magic, or the Enchanted Forest, or anything with even the faintest chance of bringing him within ten leagues of his father. It's how I convinced him to leave Emma.”

“You -?!” Emma raged. Sure, she didn't want to see Neal again any time soon, but learning why he'd left, learning that there had been interference... She lashed out, and punched August solidly in the jaw.

“You'll be glad to know, Miss Swan, that you will not need to confront my son in order to break the curse,” Gold said with a sigh. “You will, however, be required to confront your own son.”

“What?” Emma asked, confused.

“With magic, intent is everything, or near enough as to make no difference,” Jefferson explained with a heavy sigh, as all the pieces clicked together for him. He'd been dealing with the Dark One for a long time, after all. “Gold made the curse with thoughts of reuniting with his child, which added a twist to the traditional concept of True Love being able to break a curse. Instead of True Love between lovers, it's going to have to be True Love between parent and child.”

“And some other loving parent hasn't accidentally broken the curse because...?” Emma asked.

“Because I tied the curse to your family line,” Gold admitted. “It guaranteed that Snow and Charming would do anything to protect you, to make sure you weren't affected by the curse, because Regina would have killed you for your parentage alone had she gotten her hands on you as a babe. I'm many things, but I don't hurt children. Not deliberately.”

“The stories said differently,” August pointed out.

“I made deals for children, yes, but I never stole them, and I certainly never ate them. I found them homes with people who would do anything to have a child. So much the better than those who would give up a anything, including a child, if it meant getting their wish,” Gold snarled in response.

Emma took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She was going to have to confront how she felt about her kid. Really face up to it.

“I should also point out that, in the case of curse breaking, actions speak louder than words when it comes to proving emotion,” Gold added carefully.

“I need to go for a walk,” Emma decided. “Alone. Let all this settle in my head. Question before I go though, for the grandfather of my kid.”

“Yes?” Gold asked cautiously.

“You want a more familial title?” Emma offered with a weak smile. “And would you like me to tell Henry to call you 'Grandfather', or some similar variant?”

Even in the dim light of his back room, it was possible to see a glassy sheen suddenly lighting Gold's eyes, and the way his throat tightened as he swallowed around a lump.

“I'd... I'd like that very much,” he admitted, “but I won't hold you to it, if it makes you uncomfortable.”


End file.
